Discontinued
by Cinder42
Summary: With the world having been plunged into utter despair, a quirky survivor with an unusual story is left to fend for herself in the desolate remains. A task she handles pretty competently, that is until the very lot who caused the whole mess come exploding back into the picture. Now it's a battle of wills between joy and despair... and some more physical threats that hurt more...
1. Home

Author's notes:

Hey I know this is really OC based and I know that that's hella tacky, hear me out for a second here. This is part of a personal writing challenge that I hold myself too whenever I get into a new story. I have to take Cinder (a character with a somewhat unusual and out of place design) and find a way to believably write her into the story, or at least as believably as I can. It's not everybody's cup of tea but hey, I have a good time trying to do all these logistical back-bends, it keeps me limber. So yeah, keep reading if you like, at least take solace in the fact that there will be no OC x Canon Character shipping here, I have a little pride. Also, my apologies for the fact that none of the canon characters come in until the third chapter, it's honestly just because I wrote so much in the beginning that I realized it could fit its own chapter and they had some decently clean endings so it fit. They will come in very son, I am just a wordy birdy who writes way too much.

Asthmatic lungs worked reluctanly against the smog-filled air they were given. Their owner coughed and raised a tattered wing to their mouth in a futile attempt to protect them from the debris. Unlike many of the other residents who called this barren, crumbling wasteland home, she had no interest in inflicting pain upon herself. There were plenty of other things out here that would be more than happy to do that for her. Images of these indeviduols bubbled forth in the creature's mind, making her fur bristle as her talons shifted uncomfortably on her stone perch. Far bellow her, several black and white shapes mulled around aimlessly. Their round, teddy-bear like bodies seemed harmless, almost huggable, but their observer knew better, in fact only having to glance a bit further up the street at a distinct smear of electeic pink to see their handiwork. Speaking of up the street, with the bears having made their way back towards her, it was now clear, and thus the smog-shrouded beast had no hesitation about leaping from her perch. She could feel dust and tiny bits of debris hit her bare feet as she unfurled her feathered wings, giving them a few uneven flaps before relaxing into a familiar rithym. The worst of the smog was left anove when she dipped in her altitude, but it was never really gone from the air. She had gotten used to that. What she imagined she would never get used to however, was the quiet.  
Opressive and distinct, it held the landscape in a vice grip and echoed like a gunshot. The furry, pointed ears of the flyer swiveled and twitched, as if searching for the familiar dull roar that used to prevay back when this dessert was a city. Rushing cars, talking people, the flapping wings of pigeons instead of mutant rejects. She chuckled at the last one. She remembered always wanting to see pigeons when she was younger. Friends and family who lived in big cities always told her how annoying and dirty they were but she never really believed them. She always just thought of the videos of people feeding big flocks of them until they started landing on them and it always looked like fun. In hindsight it was probobly a good thing she never got to try and live out that little fantacy, it would have been a little embarassing to be disappointed like that in public. Still, it was a little upsetting for that asshole to draw all the pigeons out of the city, she could have at least tried to maybe hunt them for food. A muted grumble escaped her lips. Why did all of her thoughts have to end like that. She was begining to notice a pattern of 'oh yeah this was cool' or 'I wish I could have done this' inevitabily punctuated by 'too bad so-and-so did such-and-such.' Perhaps she would be a little less one sided if she still had folks to talk to. Thankfully, before her brain got the chance to dig into that particular can of worms, her attention was drawn up to the towering forms of some of the city's few remaining upright buildings. Their silhouettes stood out against the setting sun like low-polly trees and she managed to bring a smile to her own face by making a little show out of swooping a swerving between them. Nearly this entire district of the city was left standing, save for a few of the tallest skyscrapers and the unfortunate casualties that had been crushed benieth their wieght on their way down. Perhaps it stood as a beacon of hope amidst the wreckage, or some empty monument of despair. Her face habitually scrunched up in disgust at the words. She had heard "hope" and "despair" thrown around so much in her recent memory, she might as well have some sort of PTSD from it. Her ears drooped and she pulled out of another one of her playful loops, cutting the fun short. She shouldn't really make fun of it like that, pretty much everyone she knew had it now. Actuolly, maybe now that it was about as common as getting a cold it was okay? An audible "hmmm" broke the silence as she puzzled over the little moral delema, once again cut short by the sight of a building.  
This time the recess lasted a bit longer though, as rather than veering around this structure, she fluffered up to a clumsy but familiar landing in a broken window. Her wings shifted behind her as she stepped down out of the window frame, shaking out of her hoodie and chucking it off to the side to land on some haphazard mound of junk. Had her circumstances been different she might have tried to find a nice clean spot for it, considering it was her favorite, but a clean hoodie on a tragically filthy mutant did very little good to anyone. Her footsteps echoed across the empty floor as the soft silence of her paw pads was cut ubruptly short by the click of her talons on the tile. She rolled her eyes, dropping backwards into an old rolling desk chair from when this place presumably used to be an office. Sometimes she wondered what the folks who worked on her where thinking when they made the adjustment. "Soft feline paw pads for stealth!" "Ooh ooh but wait! Also big ass falcon talons!" "Wait won't those sort of cancel eachother out?" Her mouth shut abruptly, having realized that she had in fact been carrying on this entire three-sided conversation outloud to herself. She let out a sigh, pushing her hips into the air to make it easier to fish down into her pockets. She plopped back down with a grunt, sending herself rolling a few feet across the dust tiled floor with her loot in her hands. She held most in one palm, carefully lifting and examining each piece indeviduolly with two talons of her other. To most folks, it was nothing to write home about. There was a little rodent skull (slightly crushed from the bumpy ride in her pocket), two pocket knives (she was practically Edward Scissor Hands herself over here but hey, it couldn't hurt), and an tiny rectangular box filled with miniscule grey rods. The first three items were deposited absent-mindedly nearby in a pile of similar artifacts, but the little box was kept in hand as the nomad stood and made her way across her makeshift home. It wasn't much, just some blankets, coocking suplies, canned goods, and some trinkets she'd found, but as she sat down on a dusty old matress and pulled some surprisingly prestine books out from under it, she figured it was all she needed. She set the books down beside her and after a few more seconds of feverishly digging around under the matress and practically overturning the thing in a mounting panic, she managed to retrieve a mechanical pensil. Those long vicious badger claws of hers came in handy for once as she easily plucked the eraser out of the end of the pensil and popped open today's new little box. Careful not to break a single piece, she poured the pensil led into the instrument, capping it with the eraser again with the same sergion-like focus. With a smile, and the exhale of a breath she hadn't been aware of holding, she slipped the pensil into the spiral spine of one of the books and slid them back under her matress.  
The slivers of golden light that had so beautifully framed the buildings not too long ago was already fading into the grey light of the dieing evening and the vagabond made the decision to crack open a quick can of whatever she grabbed first and call it a night.  
As the last light faded and her wings shifted around her like a second blanket, she partook of the nightly ritual of trying to shut up her buzzing mind, and eventuolly faded off into an exhausted sleep. Her last thoughts being that of the days events, wether or not she may be going crazy from isolation, and wondering if the bionic bears that stalked the streets bellow ever slept.


	2. Well Damn

Author's Notes: Sorry again for the wait folks, not too much longer I promise. The Remnants of despair are gonna be all up in this business... along with a later flood of more OCs... I'm in deep and I can feel my sins crawling on my back, please send help.

There hadn't been all that many rude awakenings for the greasy little mutant since moving to her new digs, maybe a stray bird once or twice flying in through one of the many broken windows, but that hadn't happened for a long time, not to mention the fact that it was nothing compared to an earsplitting boom followed by a shaking so violent it collapsed her pile of proof that she was a hoarder. That right there, was downright offensive.  
As soon as the sound hit she was up and out of her bed; every hair from ear to tail standing at attention like a terrified cat. She stumbled blindly in a panic, slipping on the tiles as her not-entirely-awake-yet brain tried to grapple with what might be happening. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, aided by an unnerving amount of light from below her. The entire building continued to shake and the sharp boom from before was echoed by a chorus of gargantuan crashes. Unfortunately for her, the circumstances didn't truly sink in to her thick skull until heaven apparently decided to smite her from above in the form of the ceiling caving in around her. She didn't know how, or why, but the building was collapsing. With an inhuman shriek, she dove out of the way, or at least attempted it, likely only making things worse though as she found herself wrenched back with a sound like a choking crow as her left wing was pinned beneath a chunk of cement and plaster. The feeling of cracking bone was almost unreasonably vivid as tears welled up in her eyes. She had never been a huge prolonged crier when it came to injuries, but that one primal scream was liable to shake the sky. As it died off and left her throat feeling as though she'd swallowed a cheese grater, she immediately set to work freeing her wing. Too frightened to be gentle and with adrenaline dulling her pain, she braced herself on the base of her wing and pushed off the debris chunk with both feet, managing to send it rolling just far enough to free her feathered limb. Gingerly, she did her best to tuck it up behind her again, grabbing her hoodie form where it had toppled nearby and pulling it swiftly over her shoulders to try and at least sort of secure it in its place. She had no idea how long she had before this place went to dust, but this was certainly going to complicate things. Regardless, she made the effort to bolt back over to her mattress, sending the big brick of springs and fabric flying as she scooped up the books from beneath it and shoved them up in her hoodie before zipping it, praying to every deity anyone had ever tried to convert her to that they stayed in place as she sprinted across the room. She could feel the little bones in her knees popping as sliding as she ran, and let out a gurgling hiss of irritation at the sensation. Blessedly, it was cut short by the feeling of the floor giving way beneath her, a blessing she immediately changed her mind about as her feet hit the floor of the story bellow her. Her hiss turned into a loud bark as she felt the bones pop all the way up into their quadrupedal position, always an unpleasant sensation without her permission. With one more pained hiss and a long puff out, she was off again, this time on all fours, gripping the ground with her talons and pushing off with each stride. Another hole opened up in front of her, bit this time she was ready, leaping down willingly and absorbing the impact with her bent arms and legs as she landed on an elevated piece of rubble. As similar actions were repeated again and again, a creeping thought began to work its way into the back of her mind. In her effort to "stay safe" from the robotic terrors of the ground, she had chosen to make her home on one of the upper most levels of the building, and at this rate, she didn't know how close to the bottom she could get before the rest of the building- For what had to be the thirty-sixth time in recent memory, her little calculating thoughts were cut abruptly short, and also for the astounding highly-numbered time in recent memory, it was done by a collapsing floor: this time prefaced by another earth-shattering explosion.  
The roaring flame of the mushroom cloud erupting up through the holes in the floors bellow was all too clear now and the miraculously lucky mutant would have been frozen for sure in awe of it had the animalistic instincts she retained not managed to propel her forward. Rather than gazing down at a blistering inferno now she found herself instead gazing at the darkened ground rushing up toward her as she felt the heat from the window behind her she had just leapt out of.  
The last sensation she noticed as she closed her eyes and waited for death was that of her wings instinctively opening to try and catch her, and the rush of pain as the wind and movement hit her broken bones. Even then the muscles worked in an admittedly alright flap that she opened her eyes to see if it had saved her: just in time to hit the asphalt.


	3. Yay Terrorists

Author's Note: Well this is... crawling along.

As hard as it may be for one to believe, faith and spirituality had never exactly been at the forefront of the mind of a sixteen-year-old mutant girl in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Heaven, Hell, infinite nothingness... Valhalla... she didn't know what to expect once she died. One outcome she had not considered though, was that the afterlife would be nearly so full of loud rumbling or smell so strongly of BO and motor oil. The very much alive young mutant shifted slightly, scrunching up her nose in response to the stench coupled with the suddenly extremely aparent sensation of having half of her face pressed into a metal floor. As she moved, more and more of her began to light up with sparks of pain: her familiar left wing (noticably tied behind her as of now), her right arm (also tied back along with her left one), and stiffly the exposed side of her face. She moved it slightly, testing the limits of her aparent injuries but only managed to conjure umcomfortable images of her own face getting scrapped off on the asphalt outside her home. Content to leave those behind, she decided it would be as good a time as any to replace them with some images of her actuol current surroundings. Slowly, hoping not to draw any attention to herself from anyone who may be whatching, she opened her exposed eye, immediately letting out a high-pitched yelp and shutting it again though after what she saw.

After a few moments of gathering courage, and noticing a distinct lack of getting mauled, she chanced another look, this time letting her eye scan all the way up the body of the robotic bear before her. It was fully intact, seemingly ready to strike at any moment, but the two mismatched eyes that would normally be glaring down at their prey instead sat unfocused and lifeless above the bear's lopsided grin. A shiver ran up the restrained creature's spine as she put as much distance between herself and the bear as she could, stopping when she felt some distinctly sharp pricks in her back. Her fingers fumbled around blindly, finally managing to take hold of one of the offending objects. A rough edge, and it had a distinctive ring when she tapped it with a claw: was it scrap metal? Rolling around as best she could and craning her neck to try and get a good three-sixty of the place, her theory was confirmed. All around her loomed tall piles of twisted metal, many looking so precariously stacked that they compelled her to try to nervously change her location again. What the hell was this place?

As if to answer that question for her, the rumbling machine she and the shrapnel were riding in puttered to a stop, leaving an almost eery stillness in the air. She strained her ears, picking up on the sound of a truck door opening and closing, soon followed by the crunch of footsteps on gravel. There was barely time to prepair or adjust before the dark chamber was flooded with light.

Voices rose above the debris and the incapacitated mutant did her best to thrash around to face them. She had barely made it onto her stomach however before the final pile of scrap was removed, and the light fell directly on her. She froze, a firm hand taking hold of her hood and dragging her out onto the gravel-covered ground. She hissed as it made contact with her sore knees, trying to best to get a good look at the faces that now surrounded her. Disorientation clouded her senses but she knew they were speaking: their tones harsh and accusatory. It wasn't until another rough hand took hold of one of her ears and pulled it out to show its comrades did she start to make sense of some of the words.

"See!? I told ya I wasn't seein' shit!" Whoever owned the voice's fingers rubbed over the pronounced notch in her ear emphatically, obviously showing it off. The mutant's eyes widened, finally truly taking in the figures around her. A girl with short redish hair, an enormous black haired man, and a second girl with long blond hair and a sophisticated air about her; all stood around with faces painted in variying degrees of disbelief and displeasure.

The mutant gulped, trying her best to pull her limbs up and curl in on herself to escape their gaze. She managed to catch a glimpse of the person holding onto her and cringed, trying to make sense of the pink haired, shark toothed male before her. Meanwhile, his grating voice kept on running like a motor of its own. "It's from the old mutantion experiments right!? This is where its tag used to be!" Seemingly ignoring the babble, the blond stepped forward, taking a hold of the creature's chin and forcing her brown eyes to meet her crimson ones. "Does she speak for herself?" The fair maiden asked, her voice surprisingly light and refined compaired to what one was used to out in thos wasteland.

Realizing that the question was likely aimed at her, the mute in question attempted to clear her throat with a clumsy nod. The blond's eyebrows rise curiously, using her hold on the chin to maneuver her head around, examining it like a monkey with a mirror. "Do you posess a name?" The pink haired man groaned under his breath, his grip loosening a bit as his growing boredom started to draw him out of the conversation. "Cinder. It's Cinder." The rough voice was quiet, but still managed to bring the small group to attention. The blond released her hold now, straightening up to look down at the mutant with something akin to nearly wonder.

"We should ask Izuru about this! The bio-enhancement project was altered by mistrest Enoshima to aid in despair, we may be able to use this-" The short haired girl who had piped up was quickly silenced by a glare from the blond. The rest of the little pack seemed to groan and roll their eyes at her as well. "None of us need you chattering on about things we already know, Mahiru." The red-head gritted her teeth, clearly trying to think of some manner of comeback but never got the chance as the blond nodded to the large man at the back of the group.

The last to step forward, he didn't speak a single word, only took the tied up Cinder from the shark-man's hands. Cinder did her best to repress a squeak as she was slung over the massive shoulder, only squirming a bit when her mind began to work out the logistics of her escape provided she could manage to get out of these folks hands. With a broken wing, tied up claws and God only knows what else, chances were she wouldn't get far.

"Deliver her to Mikan. And make sure she does not get too... overzealous this time." The behemoth gave a curt nod and somewhere behind her Cinder could hear the pink haired man give a sort of humorless chuckle.

Before she could try to formulate her own reaction, she was whisked off with the large man's long strides into one of the loading doors of the worn down building she had failed to take note of before. She maintained eye contact with the others as they whatched the pair go, not knowing what else to do, she decided to leave them with an apprehensive smile.

Inside the building, nearly all light seemed to be snuffed out in an instant. The stuffy hallway had an oppressive heat to it and Cinder had to gag a good several times before she could get a proper breath in. The man carrying her moved swiftly, causing her to bounce rhythmicly atop his shoulder with each stride. He said nothing, keeping his eyes straight ahead. Cinder's ears flattened. Even as she squirmed in his iron grip and craned her neck and back to look at his face, not a single muscle on it ever seemed to twitch. She wondered what he would look like if he smiled, maybe laughed. Had he ever laughed. She let herself drop and swing a bit, trying to imagine what his laugh would sound like; or even just his voice for that matter. Maybe if she just...

She flicked her tail in front of his face. Nothing big, but just enough to enter his line of sight. There was no reaction. Experimentally, she tried again, this time flicking the quilly appendage right across his vision; still nothing. Her third try was going to be the charm; a nice big swish and a swat on the nose- She let out a startled yelp as her playful little experiment was cut short by one of the man gigantic hands snatching her tail mid-swing. He let go with his other arm and yanked her off of his shoulder by it, dangling her upside down away from his body.

Cinder gulped, wide eyes searching the man's face for anything other than pure, skull-crushing irritation. With a grunt, he merely looked away and opened a set of rusted metal doors, flooding the blackness with blinding white light.

Cinder winced and tried to adjust to the change in light for what felt like the millionth time that day. Unconcerned by this though, the black haired man merely dumped her on what felt like a hard-cold surface, and trudged off until she could no longer hear his footsteps.

Blinking, the mutant finally began to take in what was around her. For being in such a dark-dingy place, the room almost looked like a normal doctor's office. Medicine cabinets full of pills and bandages and the like lined the walls, complimented quite nicely by the various other trays of instruments around the room. If said instruments hadn't seemed quite so sharp and menacing, her mind might have actually been put at ease. Her claws scratched the metal surface of the table she sat on as she adjusted. Maybe they were actuolly going to help her. Just as the thought went through her mind though, as if some devine force were simply trying to spite her, a cracked wailing laugh seemed to slither in from behind a nearby curtain. What had that blond chick said about where she was going again? That black haired dude was saposed to make sure of something, right? She didn't know what it was, but after her shenanigans, she was pretty damn sure he did NOT do it.


End file.
